I don’t listen to songs
in which
the soloist thinks in twos
and because
there are two halves to both the buttocks
and the brain.

Last night, the vendor
at the bookstore
offered me a book called “A Collection of Love Poems “
and I turned him down.
They are no different
than pretty letters that acted as
a roof for two
between a sender and a recipient, in most of whom
lack
an address.

This sentimentality should not
be expressed
and humanity accused because
many people
are lonely.

However,
to animate a loved one in writing
she acted by taking steps –
several
and sometimes overlapping
from characterizing (the beloved) in the elements
as of an altar/ idol, the holy of holies
ritual and even binding
use of this exaggeration is an anecdotal distortion

If we admit the essence of the need
for our other half according to the saying that ‘the most popular form of stimulus
is the one provided by physical closeness’

And that love does indeed distort
the disadvantages

So let’s assume that you’ve understood my approach
to the term “love.”

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Tali Cohen Shabtai was born in Jerusalem, Israel, and is an international poet of high esteem with works translated into many languages. She is the author of three bilingual volumes of poetry, “Purple Diluted in a Black’s Thick” (2007), “Protest” (2012) and “Nine Years From You” (2018). A fourth volume is forthcoming in 2021. She has lived many years in Oslo, Norway, and in the U.S.A.